Our Collective Regeneration Commitment Renews
From multiple Black Rain Signals to powerful typhoons, 2025 continues to face the wrath of climate change. The city’s infrastructure and resilience are being tested to their limits, which includes the farming industry in Hong Kong. Many small-scale farms experienced devastating impacts, such as flooding and loss of harvest, contributing to food insecurity, biodiversity decline, and soil erosion. This is why ZFPA’s Restore Fund plays a vital role in addressing the vulnerabilities of our food system while working to restore the ecosystem.
The Restore Fund provides financial and technical support to empower farmers to regenerate our food supply chain and mitigate the financial risks during the transition. After 3 years of successful Restore in Action, we are proud to see the significant progress and results our regenerative farming community has achieved, which gives us confidence to continue indefinitely. We are excited to announce our 4th Restore Fund recipients:
Compassion Farming (new grantee)
Grow Something
Morning Farm (new grantee)
Organic Farmula
Sangwoodgoon
The awareness of climate-friendly agriculture in Hong Kong is growing steadily. From climate mitigation to producing nutrient-dense food, this form of food production is necessary and inevitable. Our programme bridges the farming communities, consumers, and the hospitality industry in the city, and encourages solidarity and collective regeneration. In the coming year, we will build on the progress already made by our previous grantees and further expand our footprint.
Graduating Farms:
After three years of supporting local farms in their transition, several farms have officially completed the Restore Fund course – Cham Shan Farm, Eva’s Farm, and Noah’s Forest. They have experimented with various regenerative practices in the past and have set up infrastructure that will enable them to implement these practices in the long run, even without continued funding. Their consistent efforts have revitalized soil health and produced delicious harvests with minimal pest and disease challenges.
Though they will no longer receive ZFPA’s grant support, they have become part of our Restore Fund Hall of Fame. As dedicated members of our community, they continue to support fellow farmers, share knowledge with new grantees, and advocate for regenerative agriculture to the wider public.
Returning Grantees:
This year, three farms are returning to our roster, continuing their transition journey. Over the past grant period, they have witnessed clear progress: healthier soils, stronger crops, higher yields, longer harvest windows, and greater resilience under harsh weather conditions. Their work will now build on these successes as they enter the next stage of transition.
“Now that the climate is becoming more erratic with unpredictable weather cycles, plants do require more lively, vibrant soil to remain resilient against these tough weather events.” – Farmer Sze Chung, Sangwoodgoon
Our locally appointed consultant encourages farmers to learn from one another by visiting different farms, drawing inspiration, and adapting methods to fit their own contexts. Combined with bi-weekly meetings and knowledge-sharing, these exchanges become practical case studies for collective growth. Organic Farmula is a great example, setting up its own compost tea and bioactive nutrient station modeled after Cham Shan Farm. This spirit of collaboration highlights the true power of community and collective regeneration: we are all in this together.
New Grantees:
We are also excited to welcome two new grantees joining this year, eager to learn more about climate-smart agriculture and improve their production, while concurrently helping advance the movement in Hong Kong.
One of the farmer applicants is actually our TAP from Restore ’23-’24! Farmer Joyce spent the last year establishing her own farm and is now ready to embark on her transition journey. We look forward to seeing these old and new Restore Farms thrive and make regenerative production the future.
“We want to learn more about regenerative farming so we can showcase that the way we farm can be a reciprocal relationship with nature and not harm the environment.” – Farmers Joyce and Yuki, Compassion Farming
Selection Process and TAPs:
The selection process and evaluation were similar to previous years. Our selection committee, comprising various experts, provided valuable insights and helped analyze the applicants’ readiness and potential to scale. To view our full selection criteria, please check out the link here. Interviews were conducted with several farms to gain a deeper understanding of their situation, address our commitments, and align our interests. Altogether, all farms demonstrate willingness to learn and commitment to building soil health and biodiversity.
This year, we also see more passionate individuals eager to learn more about farming that prioritizes the ecosystem and participates in the movement. We invited them to join as our Technical Assistance Providers (TAPs), helping us manage the accountability of funding use and concurrently learn from the group. Training provided by our consultant from Homeland Green will teach TAPs the tools and indicators used to assess the situation of the grantee farms. Regular data collection (with new tools!) will continue throughout the grant year, including the analysis of soil organic carbon, soil aggregates, and soil respiration using soil samples.
We can’t wait to see inspiring results that could further convince policymakers of the necessity of climate-smart agriculture.
Final Words:
We wish to congratulate our ’25-’26 Restore grantees and are excited to see the accomplishments that they will achieve. The Restore Fund also wouldn’t be possible without our devoted supporters from the hospitality industry and consumers who support better land management. Be sure to stay tuned for more updates and check out our grantees’ profiles for now!
